


For the Only Love I Have Ever Known

by j_marquis



Category: Castlevania (Cartoon), 悪魔城ドラキュラ | Castlevania Series
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, ruminations on god, some descriptions of injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-04
Updated: 2018-02-04
Packaged: 2019-03-13 10:22:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13568583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/j_marquis/pseuds/j_marquis
Summary: They even burned the home where she lived. Where she only sought to heal.





	For the Only Love I Have Ever Known

It took five years, five long years, for the people to realize that the kindly witch of Lupu had married the devil. Five years where Lisa was allowed bliss, allowed to learn and to heal. Or, perhaps, she mused, closer to four years. There had been those nine months where she had been heavy with child, a small, curious thing, three years old soon. They’d call him the devil’s own son, but there he was, bright eyed and singing to himself as he wove little braids of flower stems on the floor of her cottage.

Her husband would be home soon, to take them back to the castle.

Lisa had to make more medicines, and Adrian was beginning to grow into his vampire half, he’d need to stay in the castle until he had learned to control transformations and a need for blood as sustenance. His father assured her again and again that he would be able to live among humans, the toddler just needed to learn control. She had to trust him, Lisa mused, her strange husband, that their son would be alright.

Adrian climbed into her lap, placed the woven flowers in her hair with a wild laugh. His fangs were beginning to show, sharp things that she prayed none of the villagers ever saw.

No, it was too late.

Lisa smelled fire. Voices, raised and angry and in prayer. Instinctively, she covered her child, made her way toward the back of the home. Adrian looked over her shoulder, small hands gripping out for the flowers he had left behind. For a toy rabbit his father had brought him from one of his journeys. Men were pounding at the door, calling for the devil, the witch, to come out. That God was coming for them.

The only God Lisa knew was a forgiving God. One who would not condone witch burnings and blind hatred. Adrian didn’t know God yet, he was only three, his whole world was this cottage. God was in the smile of his mother and father. God was not in the men threatening to break down the door, not in the smell of smoke, not in the raised voice of the Bishop imploring them to leave the cottage with a clear conscience and face retribution.

Adrian was crying, small, weak hitches of his tiny voice. He clung to his mother, buried his face, he didn’t ask. He already knew. There was a reason he couldn’t leave the cottage, a reason he rarely went outside to gather flowers, to play, never went to town. Even at three he knew something was wrong. Lisa worried she had made the wrong decision, in bearing Adrian, in bringing him into this world. He would never have a normal life. She covered his head in her cloak, apologized again and again. There was no way out of the cottage. Nothing she could do as they set it to flame.

\-----

The man they called Dracula was returning home to his family. It was a strange, domestic thought that he never thought he would be granted, a family he never thought he would have, a happiness he never thought he would know. Packed in his bag were new books for his wife, new toys for his son, gifts from his travels. He'd promised to take them back to the castle, so his son could run freely, so his wife could work. She was so devoted to her humans, to her research, to bringing them knowledge and bettering the dismal state of Wallachia. He could barely fathom why. The people he met on his travels were scared, deeply religious, uninterested in learning anything more than their scriptures, their trades. Not the kind of people he would want to save.

The closer he got to the home she still insisted on keeping, the more they spoke of fire and retribution and saving Targoviste. Saving the land from a witch. Burning a devil spawn. And the closer he got the more he feared, tempted to simply teleport himself to them, but if it wasn't them, the pillar of flame would have been their undoing. So he ran, his bag thumping against his back when he hoisted it over his shoulder, ran too fast, inhuman, to his wife's cottage.

Burned to the ground.

He dropped to his knees in what was left of the doorway, his bag collapsed to the floor. Shock wracked through his body, a fear he hadn't felt in ages. Fear of loss. Fear of death. Not his own death, no, that was nothing to fear. Fear of the death of the only things on this wretched planet that mattered anymore. A little boy, who had never learned to fear, never known loss or pain, never dared to hurt anything. A little boy who had cried when he found a dead rat in the trap his mother had set to keep them away from the home. And a woman who had only ever wanted to better these mortals, to teach them and heal them. Who had only ever wanted good, who was so bright and loving and kind.

He would know his son's weak cries anywhere. Adrian had yet to quite find his voice, his little sobs were hitched and broken. He knew those cries, oh, he knew them, his son was somewhere in the rubble, needed him.

"Shh," He heard a voice breathe, "Shh, Adrian."

They both lived. If he had a heart, or, one that worked, he was sure it would have risen. Lifted, to hear his wife, soothing his weeping son. He scrambled up, to his feet, searching for any sign of them.

Under a fallen shelf, Lisa was badly burned. She was tucked around Adrian, sheltering him, her back reddened and worked raw by the fire. Her long, soft, lavish blond hair had been destroyed by the fire, charred ends broke against her ruined back. She tried to still, she still didn't realize it was him, someone who wouldn't hurt them, she tried to play at dead so they wouldn't find her, wouldn't find their son.

"Lisa," He breathed, sinking to his knees. "What have they done to you?"

She startled, looked up, her pale face streaked with tears and ash. "Adrian is, he's, he's unharmed."

He nodded, reached out to touch her cheek. "You're hurt. The humans hurt you."

"But they didn't kill me. We're alive, my love."

"I'm taking you back to the castle, and then I'll deal with them."

"Don't." Lisa urged, her voice soft, scratched from the ash and tears. But she let him take Adrian into his arms, the tiny thing had cried himself to sleep. He was so fragile, his breath so slight, barely warmer than his father. But there he was, in the burned down house, alive and holding on to his father.

So he gathered Lisa close as well, wrapped his cloak around her ruined back so he could bring them back to the castle. She wanted him to walk, as a man did, and so he carried them both in his arms, out of the burned down cottage, back home.

The humans who did this would be dealt with.


End file.
